Newsweek offers an article on how schools are using empathy-training programs in an effort to reduce bullying in schools: http://w .newsweek.com/2010/12/15/can- schools-teach-kids-not-to-bully.html

The effective

of such programs is

unclear at this point, and experts are divided on whether it makes more sense to offer the programs to young children (elementary school age) or older children(middle school age) (both, is probably the answer).High school kids are simply difficult to reach logistically, since they all have different schedules all day. Unsurprisingly, some experts have found that the most important component to empathy training is toinclude the parents.

In assessing these programs and the broader issues of empathy-training and bullying, there are multiple factors to consider and no clear answers. First of all, empathy is one of the most difficult and least-understoodskills we can develop –adults and kids alike. Empathyis the process of viewing and understanding the world through another’s experience, and it is often confused with sympathy, which is, essentially, compassion and lacks the “walking in another’s shoes” component (which is not to say it is not an admirable trait, it’s just different from empathy). Developmentally, children may not be able to truly understand and practice empathy until they are closer to the pre-teen years, but introducing the concept early and often is a good primer for its later development.

Another big question to consider: are programs focused on empathy simply band-aids on much larger, more systemic problems? Why are kids bullying other kids in the first place? What family

Resolução * effectiveness = eficácia issues, societal issues, educational issues, are contributing to the need/urge to humiliate and attack other children for some sort of personal gain and satisfaction? My guess is that for many kids, participating in a brief (or even a few brief) empathy-skills seminars simply is notenough, and will not get at the root(s) of the problem(s), no matter how young they are when the programs begin.

I'm not saying that the programs are not a good idea. I imagine that they have a lot of benefits andcould especially help kids who would not necessarily be bullies themselves, but may have quietly stood by while witnessing bullying, to become more confident about standing up to/reporting bullies. However, to truly reduce bullying, society and schools need to find ways to identify and work with aggressive children and their families from a young age –to troubleshoot factors (from not having basic needs met, to divorce, to models of aggression in the home, etc.) that contribute to triggering aggressive behavior. Such an approach would be expensive and time-consuming and would command a lot of schools’ resources, but it is hard to imagine a more lightweight approach being nearly as effective.

“walking in another’s shoes”. Lê-se no texto: “Empathy is the process of viewing and understanding... … confused with sympathy, which is, essentially, compassion and lacks the “walking in another’s shoes” component.”

Resolução Segundo o texto, há, provavelmente, fatores mais de - ter minantes para a prática de “bullying” do que a falta de empatia. No texto: “Another big question to consider are the programs (…) some sort of personal gain and satisfaction?”

As questões 4 e 5 referem-se ao texto abaixo.

THE WORLDS OFTo see the world in a

INFINITIESgrain of sand,

And a heaven in a wildflower; Hold infinity in the palm of you hand,

And eternity in an hour. –William Blake

Infinity has stimulated imaginations for thousands of years. It is an idea drawn upon by theologians, poets, artists, philosophers, writers, scientists, mathematicians –an idea that has perplexed and intrigued –an idea that remains illusive. Infinity has taken on different identities in different fields of thought. In early times, the idea of infinity was, rightly or wrongly, linked to large numbers. People of antiquity experienced a feeling of the infinite by gazing at stars and planets or at grains of sand on a beach. Ancient philosophers and mathematicians such as Zeno, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Aristotle, Archi medes pondered, posed and argued the ideas that infinity presented.

Aristotle proposed the ideas of potential and actual infinities. He argued that only potential infinity existed.

In The Sand ReckonerArchimedes dispelled the idea that the number of grains of sand on a beach are infinite by actually determining a method for calculating the number on all the beaches of the earth.

Infinity has been the culprit in many paradoxes. Zeno’s paradoxes of Achilles and the tortoise and the Dichotomy have perplexed readers for centuries. Galileo’s paradoxes dealing with segments, points, and infinite sets should also be noted.

The list of mathematicians with their discoveries and uses or misuses of infinity extends through the centuries. (…).

(...), Kurzweil believes that we’re approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity –our bodies, our minds, our civilization –will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away. Computers are getting faster. Everybody knows that. Also, computers are getting faster faster–that is, the rate at which they’re getting faster is increasing. True? True. So if computers are getting so much faster, so incredibly fast, there might conceivably come a moment when they are capable of something comparable to human intelligence. Artificial intelligence. All that horsepower could be put in the service of emulating whatever it is our brains are doing when they create consciousness –not just doing arithmetic very quickly or composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions, appreciating fancy paintings, making witty observations at cocktail parties. If you can swallow that idea, and Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can, then all bets are off. From that point on, there’s no reason to think computers would stop getting more powerful. They would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are. Their rate of development would also continue to increase, because they would take over their own development from their slowerthinking human creators. Imagine a computer scientist that was itself a super-intelligent computer. It would work incredibility quickly. It could draw on huge amounts of data effortlessly. It wouldn't even take breaks to play Farmville.

Resolução De acordo com o texto, é possível que, num futuro próximo, os supercomputadores se desenvolvam inde - pen dentemente de seus criadores humanos. No texto, lê-se a seguinte afirmação: “Their rate of development would also continue to increase,because they would take over their own development from their slower-thinking human creators.”

From that point on(linha 27), refere-se a a)whatever it is our brains are doing. b)all bets are off. c)Kurzweil and a lot of other very smart people can. d)if you can swallow that idea. e)they would keep on developing.

Resolução “From that point on” refere-se à “if you can swallow that idea”.

(…) I found that I couldn't capture ISI's nuances in newspaper columns. So my eighth novel, Bloodmoney, is set largely in Pakistan; it centers on a fictional ISI and a CIA whose operations inside Pakistan have spun out of control. I describe the director general of my imaginary ISI this way: “To say that the Pakistani was playing a double game did not do him justice; his strategy was far more complicated than that.”

This Janus-like quality is true of all intelligence services, I suppose, but I have never seen an organization quite like the ISI. It is at once very secretive and very open, yet ISI officials get especially peeved at the charge of duplicity: “I can not go on defending myself forever, even when I am not doing what I am blamed for,” wrote one of my ISI contacts, after I had written a column noting the organization’s “double game” with the U.S. “I shall do what I think is good for PAKISTAN, my country. I am sure you will do the same for US.”

What this official wanted me to understand was that Pakistan was suffering under its own onslaught of terrorism. An ISI briefer almost shouted at me in 2010: “Mr. David Ignatius! Look at the casualties we have suffered fighting terrorism!” We’re in alongside the U.S., ISI officials insist. Yet they are caught in the backwash of an anti-American rhetoric they help create. The ISI's press cell feeds Pakistani newspapers constantly; presumably, it thinks its U.S.-bashing leaks will hide the reality of the ISI's cooperation. But the puppeteer has gotten caught in the strings. Anti-Americanism has taken a virulent form that threatens the ISI too.